A Funeral For A Baby: The Production

Has anyone else noticed how this year has been death crazy? People are dropping like flies. 2009 seems to be the Grim Reaper of the Decade. Ok, not really but, man, a lot of people have croaked. Especially celebrities. If  I were famous at all I’d be looking for way to be un-famous and not leave any sort of mark on the world, stat. That way I could buy myself some time. I’m just sayin’…

Ok. All insensitivity aside. I’ve been personally touched by death this year too. And me being me, if I can’t joke about it somehow, then it becomes too hard to bear. If you wanna read the sad part of all of this and see that I’m not a cold-hearted jerk, you can read my other blog at http://myquietthought.wordpress.com.

Anyway, back to death and all that.

My sister is having a baby in 2 weeks. It’s a pretty sad occasion as the baby has a major heart defect and will pass away pretty quickly. This means we are planning a funeral while getting ready to celebrate a birth. Yeah, I know. It’s very sad but God definitely doesn’t give us more than we can bear and will give us moments to make it all endurable. He’ll even give us times where we can just laugh at things that are going on.

Like with the funeral for my soon-to-be nephew…

My brother-in-law is a fairly dramatic person. He always talks about how he doesn’t like big productions and how much he hates stress but, in all honesty, I think he enjoys it a teeny bit more than he lets on. I love Neil dearly. He makes me laugh because of stuff like this.

Example: The issue of Pal Bearers. Pal Bearers are the ones who carry the casket from the hearse to the grave site or from the place of the funeral services to the hearse or something like that, right? Usually you need a few of them to carry a casket because a casket bearing a person would be heavy. Awesome. We’re all on the same page here. But are Pal Bearers necessary if you have an 18 in. casket carrying a 7 lbs. baby? I think one person could probably handle the job.

Neil on the other hand doesn’t want to offend anyone so he’s going to invite EVERYONE and their llama to be a part of this. He wants 11 (yes that’s right ELEVEN) Pal Bearers for his son. All I could think is “Is that even possible? Every one of those fully grown men could be no more than 1 1/2 inches wide to be able to do that. After all, the casket is only 18 inches long. Are they all going to just stick a finger on it and shuffle their way to where the casket needs to go? Or are they all just going to daisy chain it and look like a chorus line about to do a sullen Can-Can as a farewell?” As much fun as that would be to watch, its probably not the most appropriate thing to have at a funeral for an infant. Maybe at my funeral though…

Apparently the Pal Bearers are “Honorary” and my brother-in-law is going to be the only one who is going to be carrying the casket. So now my question is “Why have Pal Bearers at all?”

My sister was thinking the same thing as me on this one. It just doesn’t make any sense. They’ve been arguing about it for a few days now. So tonight they came to a compromise. They agreed on 6 Honorary Pal Bearers. That’s pretty much the complete center on what both of them were thinking. It made me laugh quite a bit. I will say that 6 is much better than 11. I’m still trying to figure out what they’re all going to be doing as “Honorary Pal Bearers.” I’m thinking they’re going to be standing around looking pretty in their boutonnières. (I don’t think I spelled that right at all. Whoops.) Maybe the Can-Can isn’t such a bad idea after all.

And that’s not all! The funeral service is going to be a mini symphonic adventure. I’m really not joking. There are going to be 2 speakers and 2 musical numbers. One musical number is going to have a harpist, a flautist, an oboist and 6 singers. The other musical number is going to have a full string section, a flautist or two and 8 singers. And then Neil and I are singing at the grave side. We’ll all be available for hire for any corporate or private gigs after Oct. 17th.

Yeah. This is a bit over the top but, just remember, we love Neil. 😀 And ironically enough, his ideas of grandeur have made for some pretty great laughs in the hardest part of this whole tragedy so far.

Sweet? Or Creepy?

Have you ever had a love song message left for you?

I did about 2 weeks a go. Seems sweet, right? They played the song all the way thorough and even let the DJ on the station say the name of the song and artist. Aw! Tender! How unexpected! It definitely made me smile a bit. 🙂

But then I got to thinking about this a little bit more….

They didn’t say anything themselves. No name, no call back number, no nothing. Not even in the background. And to make it even odder (is that a word? Or is it “more odd?” All you word nerds out there let me know, k? Thanks!) it was left on my work phone. AND it was all static-y and stuff. That’s not so normal.

I don’t know of anyone that I know, other than people who work for the same company as me, that has my work phone number. So this is where I wonder if it’s creepy. Rightfully so, right? Or am I just crazy and not need to worry about it. Should I just accept it as a sweet gesture and be happy at the thought of a possible secret admirer? Or should I be walking out of my office every day with a can of pepper spray skillfully hidden in my hand and pray that Chuck Norris comes to save me should I need saving from a crazy stalker-man?

I don’t know. What do you think? Should I be all girlie and swoony wondering who my shy-but-sweet possible admirer is? Or should I pray that I register on the Chuck Norris-o-meter for a heroic display of manliness and bravery?

Oh! This was the song that was left. I hope you enjoy. I got a kick out of it.

Yeah. I know.

Another Blog?

Yep. That’s right my Lovies! I have another blog. It will be pretty much nothing like this one. It will be one for serious musing on my part.

What’s that you ask? “Does The Shimmy ever do any ‘Serious Musing?'”

As shocking as it may seem, the answer is Duh! Of course I do. Doesn’t everyone every once in a while?

So, I’m giving you the disclaimer right now: If you want to read that one too, just know that you will meet a different side of me. There’s hardly any giggling there. I know, right? How is that even possible? But somehow it is.

And now, you’ll be getting this great 2-for-1 deal! I promise you that every time I update my other blog, I’ll update this one too! Wow! Can it get any better? I submit that it cannot! Well, maybe if you add a cookie to it. But I make no promises on the cookie.

Yeah. So….if you wanna check out the other blog, its at www.myquietthoughts.wordpress.com OR you could just click on the link called “Another Side of Me” in my blogroll. It’s just right over there, just in case you were wondering. —————>

Oh, and HI! Did you miss me?? I’m sorry my Babies! I won’t do that long-time-gone thing to you again. Mama is here to stay.

And another random thing….

Number 26:  (I totally forgot about this one but its just too good to pass up!!) A man told me once that my voice was so good and I sang so well that I made his loins ache. How could I forget that??? That is just too good to forget. I laughed forever over that one!

Oh, Traci, Just so you know, Mrs. Pac-man is still going strong.

25 random things about me…Just in case you wanted to know.

1. This is because of one of those silly note things from facebook that I just decided to put on here because I haven’t posted anything on here for so long. I thought, “Here’s a good way to do that blogging thing again.” I could be totally wrong though. Oh, well. Here it is anyway.

2. I have moved 41 times. I’m really hoping I don’t make it to 75 but not holding my breath on that one.

3. I lived in the south when I was little and have a southern drawl that only comes out when I talk to or about my daddy or when I watch a movie where they speak with an accent.

4. I like to sing. I think I have a pretty decent voice. My secret ambition that’s not so secret is that I want to be a jazz singer someday. But I need to find my inner sexy black woman first.

5. I love chocolate cake with white frosting. Any other way is just weird. Except maybe ice cream cake.

6. I make AMAZING yams. (Thanks Grandma Saxton!)

7. I’m always about 15-20 minutes late for work everyday. And I try really hard not to be.

8. I’ve been swing dancing for 6 years. You know, like the big band swing stuff. Balboa is my favorite style of dance.

9. I haven’t seen my dad in 10 years. But every time I hear “Saturday, In the Park” by Chicago I have to call him and tell him I love him.

10. Traci drew a dust Mrs. Pac-man on my dashboard the last time she was out here. Its still there.

11. I’m not afraid to try new kinds of food. I’ve eaten frog legs and crickets before (not at the same time). I’m always up for something interesting.

12. I think I’m the black sheep of my family. I’m the only not crazy one.

13. I don’t know quite where I fit in the world. I’m sorta everywhere and nowhere all at the same time.

14. I share my birthday with my best friend and with my boss.

15. I’m a walking disaster. I hurt myself regularly without even trying. I kick one of the drawers on my desk regularly because its a sneaky little sucker who likes to open secretly and catch me off guard.

16. I have a personal trainer who trains me for free. She’s amazing and I am almost always sore anymore. Its a good sore. I just have to keep telling myself that.

17. I wish I were 5 feet tall. I just barely missed the mark at 4’11 & 3/4″. But I don’t have to duck very often. I like the fact that I can use the little pink door at Kid to Kid.

18. I hate the fact that my New Year’s Resolution was to make this the year of No regrets and I keep having things come up that I want/need to do and they almost always contradict each other.

19. I think God has a sense of humor and that I’m his personal jester the vast majority of the time. I think He gets a big kick out of me.

20. I’m not a very sappy girl. But when I have my “girly” moments, they’re really girly. Make you want to throw up in your mouth a little bit kind of girly.

21. I went to massage therapy school for a semester. I’ve been thinking about going back just so I can have that skill to be able to do something nice for family and friends. And it would be nice for my future husband. I’m sure he’d appreciate it. If I can still give massages when I’m 90, that is.

22. I think almost anything meaningful I could ever say has already been said by someone else.

23. I like to think I’m a good listener.

24. I tend to be really funny at the most inconvenient times. Like if you’re in pain and you say “Don’t make me laugh.” You better brace yourself for some serious pain.

25. I only have one ticklish spot. And I bite when anyone tries to tickle me. True story. Just ask Justin.

 

 

What do you think are some random things about me?? What are some fun random things about you that you think I should know?? Tell me!

As promised…Proof that I need a better filter sometimes.

I went to St. George this weekend. It was beautiful and freezing. Isn’t southern Utah supposed to be warm or something? Yeah, I know its winter but come on! Its the desert. And the old people live there. And it’s close to Las Vegas. Isn’t’ some of the warmth from all of that sin supposed to radiate over to a place that’s located so near it? I’m just sayin’.

Anyway, back to my story.

On my way down to St. George the other day I had a memory about a friend of mine and some of the shenanigans we had down there a few years ago. I decided to text him (I think I’m only this tactful around the opposite sex) and have a good laugh about the memory. My text read “Hey Kid! I’m on my way to St. George and I’m having flashbacks of you pant-less and me making a flying exit off of a bed. Hahahaha!”

Yep. That’s what I said. Funniest part about this? I didn’t even figure out how badly that could have been taken until 2 whole hours later. I am that slow. As soon as I realized this (as I had been dozing off in my sweet innocence), my eyes shot open and I announced to the other people in the car what I had done. If I’m stupid, someone should be able to have some joy at my expense, right? Announcing my stupidity, therefore, becomes a must.

I, then, texted (is it “texted” or “text”?)  my friend back and apologized profusely, hoping he had understood what I meant. Not awkward at all, right? Totally played that one completely cool. I’m awesome like that.

That trip with him to St. George (oh so long ago) was great. Just after we had gotten down there, we were deciding who was going to sleep where. My friend, Mandi, and I were going to be sharing a bed. We were showing each other how we slept and how much space we needed when Andy decided that he wanted to stand in the doorway and listen to our conversation. I had my back to the door and didn’t know he was standing there. I had this urge to look behind me, but, not expecting anything or anyone to be there, was SHOCKED to see him standing there. He scared me sooo bad that I literally did a 180 in the air and fell off a bed that was at least 3 1/2 feet off the ground. That was good times. He laughed at me for 20 minutes, went into the bathroom to compose himself and brush his teeth and laughed at me again just as hard when he looked at me again while brushing his teeth. That’s me making a flying leap out of a bed. Sounds like something I would do, doesn’t it?

Poor Andy had to put up with three girls on this trip all by himself. I am very proud of him for making it through with so little emotional damage. The poor kid, a day later, was changing his pants (in a room with walls that were mostly made of glass mind you) when one of the other girls decided she wanted to go make a funny face at him. The other two of us knew that he was changing but didn’t know what she was about to do. So, as she ever so slyly rounded the corner (*snicker* sly and this girl NEVER belong in the same sentence) with her face ready for making a funny, she catches him pulling his pants up and the face and sound that came out of her was one that no one was expecting. Eyes bulging out of her head, face a deep puce color, she squealed and babbled random apologies as she bolted out of the house to find some solace from her embarrassment. We all laughed as hard as we had when I did my bed acrobatics.

Those were good times. *Looking off dreamily at the ceiling*

Anyway, that’s my story. The End.

–Events in this story are all true. No names were changed to protect the identities of people in this story because I’m not nice enough to do such a thing and I think its funnier to be that way and all credit should be given where credit is due. If you ever meet/see one of these people, be sure to laugh a lot and say something about pants and beds. Thank you.

My job, The hair salon

I love my job. I truely love my job. I work with really wonderful people. They all make me giggle on a regular basis (like that’s really hard to do or something). They are all just so hillarious! There was this one time when we…..heeheeheehee *snicker*…..ah, those were good times.

Anyway… 

A couple of months ago I got a haircut. A pretty major haircut. I ended up donating at least a foot of my hair to Locks of Love. (Yay for someone having a wig made out of my hair!) I came into work that day (I work for a company that provides services for people with disabilites. Have I mentioned that before? I really don’t remember. I think I might have. If that’s the case, sorry for the redundancy. At least I’m not as bad as Juicy Juice, right?) with hair down to the middle of my back and walked out of my boss’ office about 40 minutes later with hair just below my chin. I loved it! So happy was I. A brand new swagger came about because of the hair. As stupid as that sounds, its totally true.

I decided a week or so ago that my hair had gotten too long. When my hair starts looking like a duck’s butt in the back, something needs to be done. I asked my co-worker if he wanted to play “Hair Salon” again at work. We planned it and went for it today.

How awesome is it be able to get a haircut at work? I mean, who gets to do that? Other than people who play “Hair Salon” for real that is.

I do have to say that my hair is quite a bit shorter than it was the last time. Its taking more to get used to this time. I’m definitely not a “hair-at-the-chin” kind of a girl. Its gotta go below my jaw. Guess where it is now? That’s right. You guessed it. The jaw line is getting all the attention this time. I’m really glad my hair grows so quickly. It will be back to swagger lenghth soon enough. I give it about a month.

My favorite part about all of this is my big boss here knew all about it. All she did was chuckle a little and said, “Have fun!” Yep. This is my job. Sometimes its so tough to be me.

Jello today, sore tomorrow

I am a wuss. It’s the truth. I got to find out just how much of a wuss I am tonight.

A dear friend of mine that I haven’t seen in…what…3 years? (Yep. I’m a really great friend!) has offered to be my personal trainer for the ripe old price of FREE! How lucky am I? (She really is a personal trainer by the way. She is certified and stuff. That means she won’t hurt me. Well, not in a bad way anyway.) Seriously. So, I went over to her house where she has a bunch of stuff to train people with (so I don’t have to pay for a gym membership either. Jealous yet?) and we do the whole talking, measuring, blah, blah, blah stuff first. We set a few goals then started in with the strength training stuff.

This is where I find out just how much of a wuss I really am. Especially in my upper body. I start with the triceps, not too bad. Actually went pretty easily. Then we do biceps. Doing ok with that one too. Then we get to the weight-in-your-hands-and-you-raise-them-straight-out-in-front-of-you things. Yeah. Not so easy. Then we do the next set of reps on each of those things. Got a bit tougher (slight understatement here)…..and I was getting all shaky and wimpy. But I kept going!

Next we do some arms-like-goal-posts-rotate-the-arms things. Did ok. Then girly push ups. Did really pretty ok there. Then things that were close to the weight-in-your-hand things from before. All sorts of lame on my end again. But I succeeded! I did both sets! I was very proud of myself. So proud that I didn’t fall on my face and prove my girly-girlness and make a complete fool out of my self at the same time. I’m really going to feel it tomorrow.

I’m excited to be all “Uh, my body is so sore. I can’t believe how sore I am from my workout. I’m mean, honestly, I’m so sore.” Eventually that’s going to turn in to “I can’t believe how curvy and not round I am. I’m mean, I’m curvy and not round. It so awesome to be curvy.” Then I’ll really have something to shimmy about. Eh?

I know I’m a nerd. Shush.

Trying to keep up with yourself is kinda fun!

Have you ever tried to have two conversations at the same time? How about two different conversations with the same person? That is really fun to try to do.

It’s kind of hard to not mix up the conversations with one another. I was doing this tonight with my brother-in-law, Neil. I started chatting with him on gchat then he saw that I was checking facebook too and decided to play a game of tag or something.

I think it might have been a bit easier for me to keep up, I think, because I’m a female. We all know that females have a better ability to multi task than males do. I had to keep reminding him to talk to me on one and then the other. I think it would have been easier to keep his attention going the way it should have been if he had ADD and not OCD. Two completely separate realms there kids. Opposite ends of the spectrum as a matter of fact. But most people know that already.

Things can get kinda goopy in a double conversation though. Kinda like a guy who doesn’t clean the earwax out of his ears often enough. (Hahahaha! There you go Neil. That was just for you.) Gross visual. I’m sorry. But we were able to work it out pretty nicely. It was a lot of fun. Talking with my brother-in-law, having two conversations at the same time. Not the earwax thing. Sorry to bring that up again.

Anyway, moral of the story is: If you get a chance to have two conversations at the same time with the same person, give it a go. See how long you can keep it up and have two very real and separate discussions. You know what you should try? Try to have a heated debate in one and have a funny something-or-other going on in the other and see if you can keep your emotions appropriate to each conversation! If you do that, you have to let me know how it goes.

Hi again!

I just realized how long its been since I said something on here. Not to mention that my last post was the sad one. Y’all must think that I need some happy help or something. In all honesty, I’m a very happy girl. 😀 See?

Anyway…..

Can I tell you just how not smart I really am? I was babysitting my nieces the other night and I decided to watch a movie. The kids were in bed and I had a little while until my sister (my surrogate sister) and brother-in-law came home from whatever it was they were doing so I decided I would watch 1408. Nice. All by myself, watching a scary movie, with really great surround sound, in a house that tends to give me the heebie jeebies at night. Let’s just say I almost wet myself a couple of times because I was too scared to get up and go to the bathroom because it was a ways away and seeing my own reflection makes me jump. Yep. I am a genius.

Thanksgiving has come and gone. Time with the family was wonderful! There were no family feuds this time. That is a miracle. Honestly. If you ever met my family you would know immediately how trailer park we are. We all have our teeth (actually, my step-dad is as toothless as they come. But he’s got a nice set of fakies!) but that’s about it on the up side of that one. It was really nice though to get together and not have food being tossed around as easily as the insults of each others faces. Ah, the joys of being me. 😉 We love me anyway, right?

What else has happened? Oh yeah! I’m gonna get skinny and buff! A friend of mine from awhile back is a personal trainer. She wants to train me for free. How about that?? I’m so excited! I can’t wait to be curvy and not just round.

Anything else? There have been a few things I’ve wanted to write about but I haven’t. I’m lame, I know. This post is pretty meh. I’ll do better on the next one. That’s a promise.

OH! And the Christmas season can officially begin now. I’m ok with that. 😀